In her new vibrant and spirited picture book, artist Laura James pays homage to her childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., Caribbean immigrants, and to her mother, a homemaker who wore many hats. Often relegated to the background, nannies and domestic workers are seldom the topic of children's stories, yet James achieves at once a deeply personal and universal story. James will speak about how she came to write this book and what it means to tell a children's story with big topics including economy, religion, immigration, and love.
Laura James
Ms., Laura James Fine Arts
Laura James’ paintings reflect her life, a world surrounded by women. Her ongoing work, The Nanny Series, abstracts images from her childhood with the use of surrealist painting and postcolonial theory to address issues of gender, work, and motherhood in the lives of domestic workers. Based on this work, James’ third children’s book, “My Mother Was a Nanny,” was recently released.